Trans adults more likely to be autistic, Times article

One of my sons is on the spectrum (he's diagnosed). He's 16 and so far has shown no interest in gender identity politics to my knowledge. I can see where it would spring from though.

He has in the past displayed quite rigid views about gender roles which in my opinion stems from a desire to categorise everything, which I think is one way he tries to make sense of the world. It's not really that different to what we all do to some extent he's just a bit more black and white about it than the average person without an ASC.

For example a couple of years ago his younger brother had his ear pierced and chose one of those fashionable diamanté style earrings. He couldn't stop going on at him and us that this was a 'girls earring' and his brother shouldn't have picked it because he is a boy. He was quite fixated on it for a while.

I had to spend a lot of time reiterating that it didn't matter, that 'things' don't actually belong to boys or girls and all the other debunking of stereotypes. He eventually let it drop but he does have a tendency to get a bit of a fixation about these sort of things. I can completely see how he would be susceptible to the sorts of explanations groups like Mermaids churn out.

So for my 12 year old daughter, she's seen what the loudest bully boys are like in her class (two of them were watching porn from age 10 if not younger) and so when she got her puberty at 10 (it would be interested to see the correlation between girls getting their period younger and wishes to be trans) she was very scared of development that would make her look more like a woman and therefore prey to these boys.
She's also very aware of what girls are "supposed to be like" because having Autism makes her feel different to what she perceives as normal girls. She is also lesbian. In her friend group of 5, 4 all of the girls identify as non binary. One says she is bisexual, another pansexual. My daughter seems to be the only girl who knows she is a female and says as such.
Chillingly I can see how easily it would be for a parent, friend or unscrupulous group to get her into the trans trend. It's already happened to a friend who is now going the Tavistock route.
I would be expecting more court cases.
I've listened to Irreversible Damage with my daughter, I would suggest anyone else who had child who could be susceptible to this to do the same.

The link between autism and being transgender isn't fully understood or well studied. But we know autistic people are also more likely to identify as gay or bisexual, so it's very interesting.

There's some bio theories (brain development in autism and the role of neurotransmitters and hormones) which state a mix of genetics and hormones are the cause, and some psychological theories about autistic people being more likely to question societal expectations so more likely to experiment with gender and sexuality.

The very long comment by Gary Powell is particularly good.
Yes, very impressed. Excellent logic. It's the most recommended, I'm glad to say.

The article may be (is) rubbish but the comments are great.

It seems like a lot of people really have ‘educated themselves’ and are educating others.

The very long comment by Gary Powell is particularly good. Considerably better - and I think longer - than the article itself.

Though ‘OH PULEASE!!!‘ from a chap called Eric sums it up rather nicely.

I was v disappointed by the article too - not at all up to the Times usual standard of journalism. Use of the wretched “cis” word, nonsense about “assigned at birth”, and completely missing the elephant in the room - that many autistic children may not be trans at all, but latch onto the gender ideology stereotypes to try and rationalise their feelings of otherness.
How many autistics will end up sterilised and with damaged health, from totally inappropriate puberty blockers, hormones and surgery?
As a doctor, I am appalled that clinics such as the Tavistock would even consider “affirming” these children’s self diagnosis without a thought that it could be totally wrong. I hope some high profile court cases and multi million pound damages claims may halt this juggernaut before more children are harmed. And as an autistic myself, with an autistic daughter, I am grateful we both hit puberty well before all this fad. Our “male” interests in SF, computer gaming, science, trains and maths, and our loathing of fashion, make up and pink sparkles were simply accepted as part of our personalities. Nowadays, I shudder to think what pathway we might have been directed to.

A long time ago when I was a grad student, back in the very early 2000s, I was a research subject in some of Simon Baron Cohen's studies about autism and the 'male brain'. (It turned out I am at the extreme other end of ASD traits with less than 4% autistic traits compared to the general population or something!)

Anyway, the questions used in the studies were like extremes in circular logic -- they asked only about what socialised gender roles you preferred and frequently confused sex and gender. i.e. to discover whether you had a 'male brain' the questions were about things like do you remember playing with dolls or computers as a child, and so on. So not only was it based on self-perception of childhood play choices that were more about socialised gender roles than biological sex, but also about remembering these fifteen or twenty years later. As a grad student working in a social science field I found it immensely frustrating that the studies were so badly designed, so unscientific, and so ignorant of all the research done on socialised gender roles since the 1960s.

It firmly cemented my opinion that SBC is a bit of a fraud in terms of any conclusions that could be drawn from his research. If it had been framed more like autism and its correlation with how adults remember their own compliance with gender roles it might have been on some use -- but what it definitely didn't do was prove anything about sexed 'brains'.

Was also going to mention that Simon Baron Cohen thinks autism is to have a male brain. If you are female and have autism, you definitely have a female brain. Was reading some stuff by Tania Marshall who has noted that many young people with ASC can question gender and that they need really careful support.

I haven’t looked at the full report yet (it’s too damn hot to think straight) but from the Times article it does seem like they’re ignoring the principle of ‘the most obvious answer is probably the answer’.

If my director decided to do this - well I’d be bloody amazed. She is a very intelligent woman, very diplomatic and heading to retirement age.

She doesn’t follow these topics but a couple of things I have mentioned in passing has made her do snake eyes, purse lips and say hmmmmmmmmm.

^ wasn’t it at 4000% increase? Just noticed that bit.

Jo March’s comment underneath it is good. My daughter is autistic so this is a subject that is very important to me.

(Copying and pasting)

I have experience of younger - teen - transidentifying girls. All of them have autistic traits or some other psychological problem, such as anxiety. If I had had to pick out who'd go on from Primary (where I knew them) on to Secondary and 'come-out' as nonbinary or trans, I would have picked those girls. For the reason you said.
The biggest group of referrals to the Tavistock GIDs are teenage girls, and a huge 400% increase in referrals over the last few years. There was meant to be an Enquiry, called by Penny Mordaunt- on this. Never happened.
My biggest concern is what young children are being taught at Primary School age. That "gender identity" exists (what I'd call stereotypical ideas of what girls and boys are like) and is more important than biological sex. That it's possible to 'change sex' if you don't fit in by changing your name, what you wear, breast binding and puberty blockers.
The theory about autistic girls and trans-identity, is that autism in girls tends to be under-diagnosed because girls present differently and adapt better socially (eg by mimincing socially-skilled interactions) than boys. For a long time, autism was known as a 'male' disorder (Simon-Baron-Cohen held that male and female brains are different - not true - , and that autism is an extreme male brain.) Puberty presents a real challenge to kids who find change, and physical discomfort (periods) very difficult. If there is an accepting community out there that will explain you to yourself (you're actually a boy) then you might just go for it.
A generation of children (autistic and non-autistic) is being failed and turning online for mental health support, where they find trans-activists.

(or perhaps I should say that it's interesting that the research has been done in a way that leads to those summaries, rather than the opposite, as obviously they would be different studies if you want to phrase it differently).

I find it interesting that all the summaries and headlines phrase the conclusion as 'trans people are more likely to be autistic', rather than 'autistic people are more likely to be trans'. To me, those phrases mean slightly different things in terms of which condition is seen as the primary, perhaps more immutable, situation. Although obviously it's just a correlation being reported either way, phrasing it in this way seems to give the subtle perception that there is no possibility of causation between the two, given that autism is already quite well-accepted as a developmental condition that is present at birth. I think if it had been phrased in the second way, people would be more likely to question whether there could be some causality, as being trans is perhaps less established as an innate, lifelong, present-from-birth condition.

Does Nature just identify as a scientific journal these days?

“For both autistic and non-autistic individuals, transgender and gender-diverse individuals score, on average... ...lower on self-report measures of empathy.”

I think we see clear evidence of this.

There are some really good comments on there by people who really seem to understand it.

I’m disappointed to see Simon Baron Cohens name attached to the research, as he’s one of the biggest names in Autism research.

Why are you surprised? It's not at all surprising that someone who pushes the "autism is an extreme male brain" thing buys into the trans stuff. I didn't have much respect for him to start with, but lost what little i did have when he did that stupid TV show for channel 4 a while back. Anyone remember that? The quiz they put online encouraging people to find out how autistic they were? 😡 Does anyone still take him seriously then?

You're right though, they are missing the blatantly obvious. That young people and adults with autism will be at risk of latching onto the whole trans thing. Not just to explain their feelings of not fitting in, but to give them somewhere to belong. That's a very powerful drug for a person who's socially isolated and maybe been bullied. I know, I've been there. Though thankfully not with the trans thing. I'm so glad I'm not growing up admist all this trans stuff.

Thanks for the link nauticant. I’m going to have a thorough read later, before commenting on the Times article.

Comments section is light. Are their lawyers vetting them?

As with all reporting in this area it's necessary to go to the source. I think it's this:

www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-17794-1

It’s going to be interesting to see the comments below this article as the day goes on. I’m thinking of writing one myself, but I’ll have to have a bit of a think, as there’s so much wrong with it it’s hard to know where to begin - and I could easily get a bit ranty.

Apart from the assigned at birth nonsense, they seem to have assumed that autism and transgenderism are comorbidities rather than the more likely explanation that people with autism may latch on to the transgender trend to try to explain their feelings of being ‘different’. And, of course, because of social difficulties they tend to spend a lot of time online where it’s easy to be influenced.

I’m disappointed to see Simon Baron Cohens name attached to the research, as he’s one of the biggest names in Autism research. I had wondered what his take on the ‘link’ between autism and transgenderism was, and I’d hoped to see him speak up about the worrying trend of girls with autism identifying as boys - but it seems from this that he would say they are genuinely trans.

It really worries me that parents of gender non conforming autistic children (and I know several) are now going to be persuaded their kids are trans and that putting them on hormones is going to ‘cure‘ them.

I work in a support role at a university and many of the students I support have been diagnosed with ASC. Me and my colleagues have remarked to one another over the years how it is strange that an unusually high proportion of these are either transgender or thinking seriously about transitioning. These students come to us with a diagnosis of ASC from a psychiatrist and of course if they talk about transitioning we would encourage them to talk to someone with the appropriate training/qualification as it would be out of our remit to do otherwise. So this is really just an observation I am talking about and I thought it might be interesting to share.